Never Alone
by Stitchpunk
Summary: "The first time I saw Ban-chan...really saw him...was the day he told me to leave. Get out of Mugenjou. Save myself and everyone around me. He could see what I felt so clearly and funnel it into the right conclusion." Alternative first meeting.


The first time I saw Ban-chan...really saw him...was the day he told me to leave. Get out of Mugenjou. Save myself and everyone around me. He could see what I felt so clearly and funnel it into the right conclusion. He was good at things like that, figuring abstract problems out until they seemed simple. I'd find that out later too.

So I went with him, and we escaped. We had absolutely nothing to begin with. Not even the Lady Bug. We had to find shelter from the cold and rain though, so we entered a small cafe.

That was when I met Paul-san for the first time. He took one look at me and set a coffee down on the counter.

"Drink that," he said. "You're going to catch something."

He got another one for Ban-chan after I sat down. Ban-chan hadn't followed or asked for anything, which I now know was very unlike him. He had a sharp fierceness in his eyes, but I could tell already he was just covering up his nerves. He doesn't enjoy being around strangers when he's vulnerable or lost. He's gotten better about it with my help, and the help of others. He still hasn't lost that insecurity yet though.

He walked up and sat one seat away from me. So I moved over one to fill the gap.

"Ne, Ban-chan," I began, fingering the handle of my white cup, face turned to him and yet looking at the ceramic.

"Ban-san," he' corrected.

"Right. That's what I said," I nodded. "Ban-chan, what will we do next?"

He sighed and I was confused as to why, but he didn't say anything else about it. I looked up at him, waiting patiently for an answer to my question.

"We find somewhere for the night," he told me. "And then we find money."

Paul-san was drying dishes behind the counter and listening in on us.

"You two are straight out of Mugenjou, huh?" he determined easily.

Ban-chan confirmed his statement with a short nod as he avoided eye contact with the man and covered his wariness with a sip of his steaming coffee. I noticed how warm I was getting, despite the lack of electricity seeping into me from the air. Mugenjou had always had this invading coldness which permeated everything in the city, including the air and the people. This place had the exact opposite: an inherent warmth that flooded your entire body. It was helping me relax, but I was nothing if not scared still. I had no idea what was coming next; my future was completely undecided.

Our future. Mine and Ban-chan's. That helped me calm down a little. I may not have a responsibility as a leader and protector anymore, but at least I wasn't completely alone. I wasn't going to have to fend for myself.

I'd always felt alone in Mugenjou, even surrounded by my friends and others. I was on a completely different level from them, even the Volts, and it was always hanging in the air wherever I went. I was a different thing from them. Barely human, if at all. I would never say a God, but I might say the opposite. With my powers of destruction, even if I had good intentions...if I wasn't already, I would have become a demon soon enough. And then all would be lost.

As Raitei, I can't decipher good from bad. It's all just living, and it should be dead. So I lose control; I destroy that which is positive and negative alike. The Volts knew to get out of the way when I was like that, so single-minded that everything in the vicinity would be destroyed. It wasn't like that at first. I could protect people at first. But that ability had been slowly melting away from me over time and I was becoming something I hated to be. I couldn't control it. I would have been a monster, and even those I wished to save, those I was fighting for all along...I would have killed them all.

I looked over at Ban-chan who was sipping his coffee again. The diner was silent except for the sound of rain tapping lightly on the windows and filtering through the roof. One of the fixtures was acting as a guide for a slow dripping of water that came in through a crack in the ceiling. Paul's diner has improved greatly since then, but it used to be a bit of a mess.

"Drink it before it gets cold or I will," Ban-chan ordered. I picked up my coffee cup like he wanted me to and drank. It burned the inside of my mouth a little, but the heat was worth it. As the liquid poured from the ceramic into me, Paul-san spoke up again.

"I can let you stay here for a night," he said.

Ban-chan looked at him suspiciously, unused to kindness from those he wasn't familiar with. I realized then that he had no one. If nothing else, I could have returned to the Volts, but he had nothing. I was all he had in this world, and he barely even trusted me still. Oh, he wanted to, sure. But his mind and memories wouldn't let him forget the betrayal I knew nothing about at that point in time. But I could feel it.

"I've been having some trouble with vandalism," Paul-san explained when he saw the doubtful expression on Ban-chan's face. "If you guard the place for the night, you can have free room and a breakfast in the morning."

It was charity, we knew, but it was all we had. It would be prideful to turn it down, and to dismiss the first act of compassion we'd received would be stupid. So Ban-chan nodded, not including me in the decision at all. I didn't mind though. It was what I needed, and he knew that. I needed someone to take control of me. To lead me. To be my protector for once.

So I sighed, feeling more of a semblance of contentedness than I had since I could remember, and took another sip of my coffee.

We didn't ask Paul-san why. He'd just met us, two strangers who looked like we were straight out of the worst back alley in all of Shinjuku, and he'd entrusted us with his entire livelihood. He saw in us what we couldn't see in ourselves, and he put his life in our hands to show us we would make it in this world. He must have known that that day was a turning point for us; it would change the rest of our lives, whatever happened that night.

Basically, he saved our lives.

We finished our hot drinks and he left us alone, saying he would bring us back two blankets and some pillows. We could sleep in the booths. I think he never expected us to actually stand guard and watch the place. We didn't, either. As soon as the coffee was gone, he gave us each a sandwich. The beds were made on the red seats in a long corner booth. We finished our meals, not having eaten a thing in over a day, thanked him, and crawled under the warm and welcoming cloths. They were woolen and scratchy and the most uncomfortable things to sleep under in the world, but they kept the icy night air of the unheated diner out of our bones and that was all we cared about at the moment.

We stayed awake, too paranoid to rest, until the man finished his nightly clean-up routine and left back up the stairs.

"Goodnight, Ban-chan," I said, watching the boy with then limp hair laying across from me, under the table and through its structures that held it up. He turned his back on me. It should have offended, this display of sheer disregard, but it made me so happy I smiled for the first time I could remember clearly in what seemed like forever. He trusted me. And I would trust him.

I didn't turn my back on him though. I watched him apprehensively for the entire hour until he finally fell asleep, silent the entire time. I was afraid he would leave me. Like I'd left them. I don't know why. He'd taken me with him only that day. Why would he do that if he was only going to leave me there when I could just go straight back to Mugenjou before anyone realized I hadn't been intending to return?

Nonetheless, it scared me to no end that he would leave me there. It took me two whole hours after he'd calmed down enough to let his eyes slip shut and his mind wander away to convince my body to let me rest. I woke up every quarter hour or so judging by the clock on the wall, and sometimes I would catch Ban-chan's uneven breathing signaling me that he was in the same situation. A pattern of loneliness and paranoia that we wouldn't break for another few months.

But like always, morning eventually came. Five o'clock rolled around and we had already both been awake for a good hour, laying in silence, Ban-chan staring at the back of the bench and me staring at his back, counting his breaths and waiting for him to respond to the what should have been disconcerting attention.

He never did though. He just sat up when he heard Paul-san walking down the creaky steps that lead him down from his apartment into the kitchen and began to fold up his blankets. I saw him shiver slightly from the cold and looked at his arms covered in goose-pimples. My own were fine. I was still soaking up what little energy was left in the air after the various buildings sucked theirs up. My weakness made me feel in control. I wouldn't become Raitei if I didn't work at it under these conditions. I could still protect myself and Ban-chan if I needed to, and Paul, but it wasn't an imperative, and it wouldn't end in total annihilation.

"What kind of breakfast do you want?" Paul-san asked as he went about readying his shop for the day.

"We get to choose?" I responded in excitement.

"Don't act so happy. It's not going to be anything fancy," Paul-san dismissed, but anything I hadn't spent two days scrounging for was fancy to me. "I have eggs with toast, hash brown, and sausages; muffins; and sandwiches that I can make for you."

"Can I have it all?" I asked with wide eyes. Ban-chan conked me on the head for what would be the first in a long string of repetitions.

"Don't be selfish, eel-boy!" he reprimanded. I felt properly abashed.

"Don't worry about it. He can have what he wants. I promised you breakfast; I didn't give you any limitations. He's within his rights," Paul-san said in my defense. I stuck my tongue out at Ban-chan and wiggled it. He grabbed it between his fingers and pulled until I yelped and jerked my head back to slip it slimily away from him. He wiped his fingers on his pants and crossed his arms on the counter as he slid onto a red barstool. I could tell he was feeling infinitely better. I could also tell, from the way he kept staring at me out of the corner of his eye, it was because I'd stayed through the night. He'd been expecting me to abandon him and go back home. But he was wrong. I'd never do that. He gave me a new life, and I was going to grab it by the horns and never let it get away.

Never let him get away.

Paul-san brought my breakfast and served Ban-chan with the same treatment. This was before we were in the habit of stealing each other's food the second we had a chance, and long before we would be able to get it through our heads and into our instincts that, even if it took a while, there would always be more where that came from. We'd both gone weeks quite commonly in the past with nothing more than a few meager bites every other day or so, and it was easy to tell from the way our skin stretched taut over our bones. I saw Paul-san staring contemplatively at our bare arms and gaunt faces and knew he could see it too. If the shadows of our pasts which were glaringly obvious in our eyes, I knew, weren't enough to give us away, our ribs certainly were.

"Listen," Paul-san began, getting our attention as Ban-chan picked at his food and I devoured mine as quickly as I could lest it be taken away again. "Will you guys stay another night to guard the place? Those hooligans didn't return last night for the first time in a week and I'm afraid they're planning something."

"Will we get another breakfast?" I asked eagerly. Another conk on the head.

"Yes, and I can pay you as well, but only if you use it to buy clothes. It's only going to get colder here, and I can't have you getting weak if you're going to be fighting off thugs," he said, nodding towards our thread-bare garments.

"We don't need pity, you know," Ban-chan had warned. "We've been taking care of ourselves until now." He had a dark and mistrusting glint to his eye and I knew again he wasn't used to this sort of behaviour. It was only becoming more and more obvious. I wondered what happened to him before he came and got me. He must have been alone for a long time to get like this.

"It's not pity. It's a helping hand to keep you from a bad start. I don't need to fuel more thugs in this city. If I can turn you into upstanding citizens, I'll do it willingly," Paul-san returned evenly. He was telling the truth, and Ban-chan could tell that as well as I could.

"...Fine. Where should we go?" Ban-chan agreed.

"There's a shop owned by a friend of mine two streets over. Go there and tell him I sent you. He'll give you a good deal," Paul-san instructed. Ban-chan took the money that was offered to him and put it in his pocket. "But eat what I gave you. It's impolite not to finish what you're given."

"I'll help you, Ban-chan!" I said cheerfully, honestly meaning to aid him, and picked up his bran muffin.

He didn't mind. That would shock me to no end now and I'd ask him what was so wrong that he couldn't even eat, but at the time I had no idea I should be worried. I was still, but not because of that. He'd had that cold look in his eye that he sometimes gets even now for a while. It scares me a lot more these days, but back then, I knew I was the same. And now when I get that way, it scares him even more than me. But it was normal before. Everyone we'd ever seen as comrades had that look. With the way we'd had to live, it was all we could do to stay even that positive.

It took another ten minutes at least for Ban-chan to finish picking at his food. Unlike now, I let him be as slow as he wanted. He may have been wary, but he was also on the verge of starving to death, and it was easy to tell despite his baggy button-up and layers of clothing underneath. He was wearing everything he owned just to keep out the cold and he was still the same size as he is now with only his two shirts. And these days, a few more pounds couldn't hurt him either. He says a smaller target is harder to hit though. I say just wear baggy clothes so they can't tell where the skin ends and the cloth begins.

We set out as soon as he was done with an unintentionally synched "Gochisousama! Ittekimasu!" called out as Ban-chan opened the door and held it open behind himself for me to go through and catch up to his side.

"Come back with the change when you're done," Paul-san ordered.

"We will!" I called back happily. "Promise!" I waved at him widely with my arm over my head and he waved calmly back as he wiped up our mess on the counter. Turning back around, I realized Ban-chan had gotten a few steps ahead of me and I jogged to catch up.

"We need to find work after this," Ban-chan said flatly. "We can't just depend on others for help in a place like this, no matter how friendly it seems."

"Aw, Ban-chan! Lighten up a little!" I grinned as I danced along the street next to him, walking backwards with a bounce in my step and my hands clasped behind my back. "Paul-san was really nice, right?"

"Not everyone here is like that. This is a bad town, Ginji. But it's the best we can do right now," Ban-chan dismissed.

I stopped acting like a kid and fell into step beside him. He didn't seem to care either way, but I felt a bit sobered by his words. It wasn't going to be easy still. My life wasn't the opposite of what it had been just the day before. Things like that didn't happen.

But I smiled anyways. It was still better. It wasn't perfect, but it was an improvement.

"Remember, Ban-chan," I said with my finger up. "Life is what you make of it. You have to be positive!" I told him with a wide smile. "So cheer up, okay? We're going to be fine!"

Ban-chan didn't say anything back to me, but his eyes seemed a little less tense after that. My job was a success.

We got to the store and a bell chimed as we walked in. Paul-san's friend was certainly a bit richer than he was. Ban-chan seemed a little worried. I watched him pull the money discretely out of his pocket and count it.

"Irasshaimase," a man in a nice suit called out and waved us over to the raised paying area, stepping down and walking to us invitingly with a polite smile.

"Paul-san sent us!" I told him immediately and loudly with bright eyes and an expectant smile.

"He told me you would be here just minutes ago. Please, pick out anything you like, all right?" the man told us. "My name is Ayumu Daichi. I'm very pleased to meet such fine young boys. Paul-kun told me about how those terrors about his diner didn't come for the first time in a long while because of you. What a nice thing to do, doing him a favour like that even though you just met him."

I hadn't thought about it like that at all. We weren't doing him any favour. He'd done one for us. The things we'd gotten in return from him were of much more value than what we had done.

Ban-chan didn't reply to the man's kind words.

"Arigatou!" I smiled in his place. "If anything, we should be the ones praising him though! He gave us a great breakfast for it!"

"Yes, Paul-san is the best cook around, isn't he," Daichi-san agreed.

Ban-chan held out the small roll of money he'd been given.

"This is from him. What can we get with it?" he asked, not rudely, but his words definitely weren't polite. The shop owner didn't seem to notice.

"Ah, for friends of Paul-kun, pick any two outfits you want, both of you," he answered without even glancing at the money he took in his hand.

"Domo arigatou, Daichi-san!" I exclaimed and grabbed my new companion by the shirt. "Come on, Ban-chan! Let's pick something out!"

"Hanashiteyo!" Ban-chan growled at me and pried my hand roughly. But he did follow, I noticed with a grin that surely wasn't smug as I headed to the boys' section in the back of the somewhat wide store. The ceiling was quite tall, I noticed, and the racks only reached up about a fourth of the distance, giving it a free, uncramped feeling. The walls were decorated with lots of huge pictures I didn't understand. They were just random shapes and colours, but Ban-chan seemed to like them. I guess I could sort of see people in them or something. They were nice though! I liked them a lot.

"Matisse," Ban-chan said quietly.

"What?" I asked, not having heard him very well. Or at least I thought I hadn't. The word was unfamiliar.

"Nothing," my friend brushed. "It's of no consequence. Find something quickly so we can start to look for work today,"

"Okay, Ban-chan!" I agreed easily, my eyes closing for a second as I smiled at him.

I looked through all the colourful fabrics with all sorts of different textures and styles. I'd never been somewhere so extravagant.

"This is amazing," I breathed as I realized just how much there was.

"What is?" Ban-chan asked uninterestedly as he picked up a shirt that looked basically the same as the one he was wearing, but obviously of much higher quality.

"Well, look at all of it! I've never seen so many nice things in one place!" I exclaimed.

"Lower your voice. We're inside," Ban-chan ordered gruffly. I noticed he sounded muffled and turned to find him with an unlit cigarette hanging out from between his lips.

"Those are bad for you, you know," I told him, trying to sound like I knew what I was talking about. I didn't know what they did, but I'd heard people say they made you sick.

"Not any worse than anything else I do," Ban-chan dismissed, checking the price tag on the shirt though it had no matter in whether he would buy it or not. It was all free after all. He picked two of the same white shirts up and laid them over his arm. "Hurry up," he reminded me.

"How about this, Ban-chan?" I asked as I held up a white t-shirt and a green vest.

"It's fine," he told me, not seeming to care either way.

"And these?" I pushed. "I like them; do you?" They were a pair of brown shorts.

"They're great," he said, sounding bored. He was distracted by a pair of jeans, looking down so he had to push his glasses back up on his nose.

"Do you have bad sight?" I asked him curiously.

"No," he said flatly, but his voice was taking on a stiff edge. I figured I'd better leave him alone for a while and just look by myself.

I went over by the wall to look at the shoes and give Ban-chan some space. There were some nice green ones and when I tried them on, they were my size, so I put them back in the box, tied my own shoes on again, and picked them up to hold in my arm against my chest under the outfits I'd chosen.

"You can use the dressing rooms in the corner, if you'd like," Daichi-san informed me, so I did. On the way, I saw a pair of gloves with metal plates on them. They would make good hand guards, so I picked them up too.

Ban-chan was quite impatient, but not outwardly showing it enough for Daichi-san to notice, by the time we got to the cash register. We'd gotten two sets of the same clothing, both of us.

"Can I put these on in your dressing rooms?" I asked the storeowner.

"Of course," he agreed, and Ban-chan and I ended up walking out with one old and one new pair of clothes in each of our large shopping bags, and twelve-hundred yen to return to Paul-san. It was more than I'd ever been able to hold in my hand at a time in my life.

"That was fun, ne, Ban-chan?" I asked joyously as I bounced ahead of him again, watching to make sure I wasn't annoying him too much. Now that we were out of the unfamiliar enclosed and cluttered space, which I knew had been bothering him, his eyes were a bit less tight around the edges and his jaw was no longer so set as it had been. He still had his teeth pressed shut, but not with such strength.

"Tons," he replied flatly.

"And now we return to Paul-san's, and then we look for work, right?" I asked.

"Un," Ban confirmed with a slight nod.

We walked the rest of the way in comfortable silence. Well, I danced, Ban-chan trudged. If you even it out, it was walking.

We returned the money to Paul-san, who gave us two cups of coffee in return.

"Say, you two," the man began provocatively as he leaned forward over the counter on his elbows.

"Yes, Paul-san?" I replied eagerly.

"How would you like to earn a little money?" he asked slyly.

"Oh, we would!" I exclaimed.

"How, exactly?" Ban-chan asked suspiciously.

"That lady over there," Paul-san said and pointed discretely. I looked over openly and Ban-chan hit me. "She was just talking about a reward. She lost a family heirloom-a pen. There's a picture of it on a flyer in the window. She's offering fifteen-thousand yen to anyone who can return it to her."

"You're serious?" I asked, wide-eyed. "That much? For a simple pen?"

"Apparently it's made of twenty-four karat gold, inlaid with rubies, and was given to her grandfather almost a hundred years ago," Paul-san told me quietly.

"Why return it, then?" Ban-chan asked with a doubtful look. "Why not just keep it and sell it ourselves? I'm sure we could get more for it."

"Ban-chan!" I whispered harshly, aghast at his brazen attitude.

"Because, you idiot kid, if you get a reputation, you could make millions as retrievers," Paul-san glared at him. "You need a job. Here's an opportunity."

Ban-chan stayed silent for a minute, his face impertinent, but I knew he didn't feel it. He was contemplating Paul-san's words carefully. Finally, he pushed roughly on the counter to get up from his seat and walked over to the window, peeling the information flier off the glass and examining it, his eyes flicking much quicker than mine ever could, even now, over the page to read every word. He then walked straight over to the table the old lady was sitting at, covered in gold jewelry and fine silks, and slapped the paper down in front of her, making her jump.

"We accept," he said gruffly.

"Accept what?" she asked, seeming a bit scared of this random teenager who'd walked up to her in an obviously bad mood.

"We'll get your pen back for you. Fifteen-thousand in return is the deal, right?" he asked.

"Th-that's right," the woman nodded nervously.

"Good. You'll have it back soon," he agreed and began to walk away. He turned back as an afterthought. "Are there anymore details we should know?"

She nodded immediately.

"If I had to guess, I would say either my step-daughter or my sister took it. It disappeared the day they left my house after the reading of my grandfather's will," she explained. "Both of them used to pine over it, but I was my grandfather's favorite, and wrote him letters every week with a matching emerald pen that was my grandmother's, so he left me the second half of the set despite their wishes. I think one of them became jealous and stole it from my desk."

"I see. Then we'll start there," Ban-chan nodded. He turned to me and grabbed the back of my vest as he passed. "Come on already, Ginji! We have a job to do!"

"Wah, Ban-chan! My coffee!" I cried out and grabbed for the cup, just barely finishing the liquid left inside it before tossing it back over to Paul-san, whose reflexes I knew from watching him were perfect. As expected, he caught it easily and with no offense at my seemingly heedless action.

"Are you sure we should be doing this, Ban-chan?" I asked nervously from the bushes outside the old woman's daughter's house.

"We were hired to do this, Ginji," Ban-chan reminded me.

"R-right," I agreed. Inside, though, I was just hoping we wouldn't get caught. There were guards outside all the entrances that seemed pretty strong. If we were in Mugenjou, I could kill them with no thought whatsoever, but in this place, with barely any electricity available, they could be a slight hassle. I wouldn't want to hurt them in the process of subduing them.

"Just be quiet," Ban-chan told me as if he'd read my thoughts. "We can go in the second-story window. There's a lattice under the balcony we can climb up, and it leads straight to the daughter's bedroom it looks like," he deduced quite cleverly, I thought. I was great at finding ways out of places, but in was another question. There were any number of obstacles if you were going in, and that was if you had any idea at all where you were going, but with an exit, the only thing you need to aim for is out.

Ban had not only figured out how to get past the guards, but he'd thought of the first place we should check, found where it was from the outside, and figured out a way into it. I stared at him with a bit of awe before he hit me again and told me to quit getting distracted.

"Now let's go," Ban-chan commanded. "Quietly."

"R-right," I nodded again and began to follow in his trail. Silently, we made it up the rose vines and onto the balcony. We checked inside to see if anyone was there. Empty.

"Good," Ban-chan clicked and slid the glass door open without a sound, not even the rollers making a noise.

"Where do we check first?" I asked as Ban-chan entered behind me. He left the door open a crack, but not enough to cause any alarm should someone see it. All we needed was a little bit more speed in case we had to make a hasty escape, and messing with the handle on the door would slow us down, maybe just long enough for someone to grab us.

"You check the jewelry box, and I'll get the dresser," he instructed. I looked around, not knowing what exactly a jewelry box would look like in such a rich person's house. "The big wooden thing by the mirror," Ban-chan informed me, knowing exactly what my lost look was for.

I went over and opened the drawers gently one by one, searching carefully through each of them so as to not mess up the meticulously placed pieces inside.

"It's not here, Ban-chan," I said as I turned around after finishing the bottom drawer.

"Not here either," my partner in semi-crime replied with a bit of annoyance. "We'll check the office."

"The office?" I asked.

"This place is huge. There's gotta be an office in it," Ban-chan deduced again.

"Oh. Yeah, of course!" I smiled. "Let's stay together, though, okay?"

"Good idea. I don't want you getting distracted by all the shiny things," he said, but I knew the bite in his tone was fake. He'd been teasing me. Made a joke. I grinned at him, but didn't mention it in case it would embarrass him. "Come on. We'll check down the hall first," he ordered, brushing past me, his arm hitting me in the chest as he pushed me away from the heavy wooden door.

"You think it'll be there?" I asked.

"There was another window beside this one. It looked like there were certificate on the wall in it. I'd bet you a hundred yen that's where they conduct their business. Rich people love to gloat about all their awards," he explained to me so I would learn from him. I soaked up the information and nodded, though he couldn't see, before following him sneakily down the thankfully blue-carpeted hall. It was so fluffy, it felt like walking on air, and our footfalls were absolutely silenced by the fibers.

Ban-chan opened the door, stood up straight, and shifted his weight to one foot.

"It's right in plain sight," he said deadpan. "What idiots, keeping it where anyone can find it just by walking in."

"Well, let's just get it and go, okay?" I urged. "Before anyone catches us."

"Un. Come on. We'll go out this window. No need to make the trip any longer by going back to the balcony. We can definitely outrun the guards if they hear us land," he agreed as he walked over and picked the heirloom up.

I couldn't believe it was that easy, but that first job went off without a hitch. We got back to the Honky Tonk, which I'd finally checked the name of when we arrived the second time, having been too bushed to bother the night before, and the old lady was still there.

"Oh, thank you, thank you!" she bubbled, so overjoyed that she jumped out of her seat and yanked Ban-chan and me into her rough embrace. Her gaudy jewelry pressed uncomfortably against my face, but she was so happy, I couldn't be upset with her.

"You're very welcome, Miss!" I said as she released us, making her blush and cover her mouth, flattered by my address.

"Well, as promised, here is the fifteen-thousand," she said and held out the money. Ban-chan snatched it up quick and began counting it, not bothering with any manners. "Don't worry, it's all there!" she tittered, unoffended by the mistrusting act.

Ban froze and I wondered what was wrong. Had she gypped us?

He turned and held out four-thousand yen to her.

"You paid us too much, old lady," he said and shook it a little to get her to take it.

"No, I paid you the right amount," the woman smiled gently at him. "I never expected it to be returned so quickly. It's been but three hours since you took the job! It's a small tip for your diligence and dedication."

Ban-chan stared at her with flat eyes, but I could tell he was surprised beyond words at her kindness.

"He's just speechless. We both thank you very much!" I told her enthusiastically, bowing my head at her and putting my hands together near my stomach.

"Oh, such respect!" the woman tittered again. "Well, think nothing of it! This pen is worth more to me in sentimental value than I could ever pay you!"

"You're very welcome, Miss," I said again and smiled broadly, spreading another amused blush across her cheeks.

She left the cafe speaking loudly and joyfully to her friend who had been keeping her company through her difficult time, and I turned to Ban-chan, about to say something along the lines of, _a job well done!_ but he was busy counting the money again.

"It's all there, Ban-chan. Don't worry-" I began, but he shoved a pile of money at me before I could finish.

"Your half," he said. "Fifty-fifty."

"Ban-chan..." I breathed. I hadn't even thought about that, who would get the money. "But you did all the work. I just followed," I objected.

"We're partners now, Ginji. Partners split things fifty-fifty," Ban-chan told me. There were almost tears in my eyes.

"...I never had a partner before..." I admitted softly, looking down at the fan of bills in my hand and not bothering to count it. I trusted him with my life, let alone my money.

"Well, you do now, so get used to it," Ban-chan commanded gruffly. He almost seemed embarrassed. I looked up. His cheeks were just the palest bit pink.

"Arigatou, Ban-chan!" I exclaimed and bulleted myself into his stomach, wrapping my arms around him gratefully. "We can call ourselves the GetBackers because we get things back for people, okay?" I continued, overjoyed, my voice muffled by his shirt as he danced around trying to detach me, but I wouldn't let go until I wanted to. I stood up, but still held him by the shoulders. Looking him in the eye, I sobered a bit, and chirped,

"And the S means we're never alone."


End file.
